Tropical Storm Ida drenching Nicaragua

MIAMI, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Hurricane Ida made landfall in eastern Nicaragua Thursday with 75 mph winds, but degraded to a near-stationary tropical storm, U.S. forecasters reported.

At 1 p.m., the center of Ida was about 75 miles north of Bluefields, and barely moving the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

The ninth named Atlantic hurricane of the season that ends Nov. 30 had tropical storm-force winds extending outward up to 70 miles.

The storm was expected to produce as much as 15 to 20 inches of rain over eastern Nicaragua and eastern Honduras, the center said.

"These rains could produce life-threatening flash flood and mud slides," the center warned.

A three-foot coastal storm surge was forecast to generate large and dangerous battering waves, although the center said water levels would begin to subside later in the day.

Various computer models suggest the storm will move northward into the Caribbean Sea past Mexico's Cancun peninsula and then into the Gulf of Mexico, where warm waters could re-energize the system.